Jul 4, 2011 11:59 AM

Please find below two pics I took on Aberdeen beach yesterday (3 July). I am unable to tell what type of animal this is. Clearly it is decomposing so a bit difficult to work out. Size wise, it is about the size of the body of a cow.

Is the head upside down and missing the jaw? It's really difficult to make head or tail of it (sorry, terrible pun) from the photos without a bit of a description. Did the carcass have any limbs, fur, etc and what were they like if it did?

A porpoise (or something similar) seems a possibility. I would agree with the previous post that you're probably looking at the underside of the skull. The main thing I'd note are the small and regular teeth sockets - this would fit with a porpoise and definately rule out a seal (although size would fit - a bull grey seal is pretty big). There also looks to be a lot a flesh underneath, which would be in keeping with a large blunt head. The only thing that doesn't seem to fit is size - a porpoise is a lot smaller than a cow.

N.B. The body surface looks like it could be a dead cetacean - well eroded dead whales/dolphons often take on a 'furry' appearance as the their tough hides are worn down.

What an interesting find! I found something similar off the coast of Ireland, in the end I took a section of the jawbone and sent it to the museum for identification it turned out to be a very large angler fish, i'm not sure if it would be possible for you to do something similar or is the decomposition past the point of no return haha